Canada at War: THE DOMINION: Farmer John’s Remedy

Ever since he set out to be Prime Minister, Canada’s Tory leader, John Bracken, has had a hard time outpromising his opponents, Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King and socialist CCFer M. J. Coldwell. Just before he accepted nomination in the next Federal election for the farming constituency of Neepawa, Manitoba, John Bracken tried again.

He told farmers that their troubles were due to the fact that the farmer had to buy in a tariff-protected market, sell in competition with “the peon workers of the Argentine. . . .” For this familiar complaint John Bracken, who is a farmer himself, had a brand-new farmer’s remedy—he would replace such agricultural aids as guaranteed floor prices and special subsidy payments with a basic formula: let farm prices be fixed in advance of each crop year at levels high enough to guarantee the farmers “their proportionate share of the national income.”

Since Canadian farmers now represent 30% of the Canadian population, they would presumably be guaranteed 30% of the national income. The taxpayers would make up the difference between the market and the guaranteed price. One unofficial estimate of the cost: from 200 to 300 million dollars a year.

Even devout Brackenites swallowed hard at this proposal to make Canada over into a managed economy. Said the Ottawa Journal: “Pretty advanced thinking.”